Having rolled home around 00:45 on Saturday (Oysterband ran long due to encores), I slept in a bit. Decided to wander over to the Festival around 11:30 A.M., and looked for lunch. Fortune smiled, and there was a Caribbean food stand offering curried mutton, saltfish fritters, jerk chicken and more. Enquired after the curried mutton, and was told that it would be about another 30 minutes before it was ready. At this point, the person who I assume was the main cook came around from the back for whatever reason, and heard me answering that 30 minutes was fine. What ensued was her jaw dropping because of a Bajan accent (in hiding) coming from white guy, and then a bit of conversation in broad Bajan. 30 minutes later, I had one of the best curries I’ve had in the past year or two (and I’ve had some pretty good curries) – it wasn’t curried goat, but it was still damn good.
My next decision was to head over to the Great Western pub in Warwick for the afternoon, as they were supposed to be hosting a decent number of bands from 13:30 or so. Well, who tell me do dat without directions? See, I knew that the pub was near the train station, and therefore, the train station must be near the train line, and I knew where that was. The only problem with that plan is I didn’t know where the station was, only where the line crossed a main road between Warwick and Leamington. So, a bit of going ‘Huh, where the heck is it then?’ ensued, with me finally finding someone to ask. Had I continued up the road for another 100 yards or so, I would have found the pub – life is funny like that.
I had intended to stay at the pub for the afternoon, and then cycle back over to the main Festival grounds in the early evening to catch the rest of the main stage performances, especially Kel Elliott. Somehow (probably laziness, and good music), I ended up staying at the pub for the entire afternoon and evening, listening to music by acts such as Davey Looth, Lydia and Celestina, Matt Hernandez (who happened to be the organiser, and a decent flamenco guitarist), Shanade, Kristy Gallacher and 1/2 of Jamsons Nook. I also shot somewhere around 260 photos of the performers – if my usual numbers hold true, 20 – 30 of them will be acceptable, and one or two will be excellent. 150 have made the first cut, but I usually iterate over the photos two or three times, chucking out the obviously bad ones first, then refining the selection until I’m happy.
I rolled back out of the pub around 21:15, and went back to the main Festival ground to find dinner – which turned out to be curried mutton again. What can I say, I like curried mutton. I pondered going in to the main tent, but opted to go home instead to catch up on my sleep, and re-charge the batteries for the D80.
